UW-Madison engineering students win 2013 Clean Snowmobile Challenge

A group of UW-Madison College of Engineering students took
first place in the internal combustion division of the SAE 2013 Clean
Snowmobile Challenge. The win was the team's fifth in the 14-year history of
the competition.

The Society of Automotive Engineers competition, held at the
Michigan Tech University Keweenaw Research Center March 4 through 9, challenges
engineering student teams to reduce noise and
emissions in stock vehicles while maintaining performance and controlling
costs.

UW-Madison Clean Snowmobile Team captain Mike Solger says
this year’s team started with a four-stroke Ski-Doo Ace snowmobile, selected as
a solid foundation on which to make improvements, for an all-around solid final
product. “We added a turbocharger and engine controls, which allows us to
maintain performance and decrease our emissions and make it quieter, as well,”
he says.

The team was well positioned to take advantage of a new rule
allowing vehicles to switch between “economy” and “performance” modes. “We’ve
been using our own engine control unit with student-developed code for quite
some time,” says Solger.

The team also won the Blue Ribbon Coalition award for the
most practical solution to a problem and received bonus points for requiring no
maintenance on fuel, oil, exhaust or other systems after the start of the week-long
testing regimen.

Solger says that by building on a solid foundation, the
students saved a lot of extra work later. “We focused on trying to design it as
best as we possibly could before we started testing,” he says.

The team is proud of its win, and Solger credits much of the
team’s success to its advisors. “They were crucial to our success and we are
grateful for their help.”